Isolation optimization and screening of halophilic enzymes and antimicrobial activities of halophilic archaea from the high-altitude, hypersaline Da Qaidam Salt lake, China

Aim: The aim of this study is to increase the diversity of culturable halophilic archaea by comparing various isolation conditions and to explore the application of halophilic archaea for enzyme-producing activities and antimicrobial properties.

Methods and results: We systematically compared the isolation performance of various archaeal and bacterial media by isolating halophilic archaea from the Da Qaidam Salt Lake, a magnesium sulfate subtype hypersaline lake on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China, using multiple enrichment culture and gradient dilution conditions. A total of 490 strains of halophilic archaea were isolated, which belonged to five families and 11 genera within the order Halobacteriales of the class Halobacteria of the phylum Euryarchaeota. The 11 genera consisted of nine known genera and two potentially new genera, the former including Halorubrum, Natranaeroarchaeum, Haloplanus, Haloarcula, Halorhabdus, Halomicrobium, Halobacterium, Natrinema and Haloterrigene. Halorubrum was the dominant genus with a relative abundance of 78.98%. By comparing different culture conditions, we found that bacterial media 2216E and R2A showed much better isolation performance than all archaeal media, and enrichment culture after 60 days and dilution gradients of 10-1 and 10-2 were best fitted for halophilic archaea cultivation. The screening of 40 halophilic archaeal strains of different species indicated that these halophilic archaea had great extracellular enzyme activities including amylase (62.5%), esterase (50.0%), protease (27.5%) and cellulase (15.0%), and possessed great antimicrobial activities against human pathogens. 34 strains exhibited antimicrobial activity against four or more pathogens, and 19 strains exhibited antimicrobial activity against all six pathogens.

Conclusions: The diversity of culturable halophilic archaea was significantly increased by enrichment culture and selection of bacterial media, and screening of representative strains showed that halophilic archaea have multiple extracellular enzyme activities and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against human pathogens.